Spice Ace, San Francisco’s best spice shop, is closing

SF’s Spice Ace is closing, meaning there will be less availability in the city for fresh and hard-to-find spices.

Photo: Craig Lee / Special to The Chronicle

Sad news for home cooks and their spice racks: San Francisco’s Spice Ace, once named one of the world’s best spice shops by Food & Wine magazine, is closing at the end of the month

The six-year-old Steiner Street shop, owned by former tech industry executives Olivia Dillan and Ben Balzer, has been a wonderland of global seasonings, offering a mind-blowing assortment of unique and hard-to-find spices.

According to Dillan, the business may not have been financial success, but it has been most definitely been successful in terms of bringing, as she says, “small joys to people.”

“The bottom line is we love our customers. We love San Francisco. We’ve just had to move on for a variety of reasons,” says Dillan.

“I don’t think we understood the impact. That’s what we set out to do,” she adds. “People tell us our spices changed their lives.”

Spice Ace will close its doors on January 30, though if there is any extra stock leftover, it may remain open for a few more days beyond that.

Until then, plenty of products are still available, says Dillan, including freshly ground cardamom. The shop is offering 30 percent discounts on everything until closure.

As for what’s next for Dillan, she says that she’s planning to write a book about spices.

Sarah Fritsche first came to The San Francisco Chronicle as a culinary student in 2006. Upon completing her externship, she spent several years working back-of-house gigs in San Francisco’s restaurant and catering industries, as well as serving as the executive assistant for a wine and spirits start-up. In 2010, she returned to The Chronicle, and has since covered everything from breaking restaurant news to what produce is in season at Bay Area farmers’ markets. Her favorite beat, however, is cooking, testing and developing recipes in The Chronicle’s Test Kitchen. She is a member of the Association of Food Journalists.